Doc Harrison and the Masks of Galleon

by Peter Telep

  “Sounds great,” Landry says, zipping up the vest. “Make us go first. No ammo.”

  “Y’all are the biggest whiners I’ve ever met,” Tommy says. “You wouldn’t last a day in the Corps. And if makes you feel better, I’ll go first.” He shifts down the line, handing us vests and helmets.

  It’s just me, the two nomads, my father, Tommy, Meeka, and Steffanie. Lucky seven. Oh, wait. I forgot about Blink. So we’re the not-as-lucky eight, but we won’t think about that.

  Once we’re geared up, Zach wipes our arms with alcohol, and then injects us with that neutralizing agent so we’ll be able to use our personas again. I flinch as he jabs me with the needle, but it’s over in a few seconds.

  At the same time, Tommy tosses a few more packs and all four rifle cases through the vortex. “The gear’s away,” he reports. “Everybody good to go?”

  We nod or give him a thumb’s up.

  He gestures for us to mount the stairs and then gets to the front of the line, waiting for the signal.

  “All right, we’re still locked!” my father shouts.

  Tommy glances back at all of us. “Soon as you get through, you move away from the drop zone. You come toward me.”

  “Solid copy! Roger that!” I reply.

  He winks, faces the engine, and hollers, “Oorah!” before leaping through the pool of energy.

  “He’s clear,” my father reports. “Next up, go! Go!”

  Our donut-loving nomads exchange an uneasy look, like they’re about to argue over who goes next. But then Landry shoves Boonwalla into the vortex and jumps in after him.

  Steffanie tosses back her ponytail, and without a second’s hesitation, she steps off the staircase. The energy scrolls up her body like a thousand snakes… and she’s gone.

  Meeka bears her teeth and looks even more fierce in her vest and combat helmet. “I’m here for her,” she tells me. And with that, she and Blink take the plunge.

  My father arrives breathlessly behind me, tugging on his helmet. “Ready, Doc?”

  I look to Grace, who stands beside Zack and clutches her throat in awe. I mouth the word, “Bye.”

  But then, just over Grace’s shoulder, a flash appears and darkens into Julie’s persona. She dressed the same as before in that white cloak, only this time her eyes are normal and she’s frantically reaching out to me.

  “Julie!” I scream.

  She yells, but I can’t hear over the roaring engine.

  I scream again—

  And now she’s looking back, like someone’s coming for her, and then she’s ripped away into nothingness.

  “Doc, let’s go!” my father cries.

  “But Julie came back!”

  “I don’t care! Jump!” He pushes me forward.

  I’m out of breath. Out of time. And all I can do is close my eyes… and surrender to the vortex.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  I’m eight years old and it’s Halloween and I’m sweating bullets behind my Buzz Lightyear mask because it’s ninety-one degrees and the mosquitoes are swarming. The backs of my ears hurt from the super tight elastic band, but these are the sacrifices we space rangers have to make.

  Julie’s dressed as Ariel from The Little Mermaid if Ariel were a flesh-eating zombie. This is way before her official cosplay days, but she’s already messing with her costumes. She’s got Ariel’s wild red hair and the scaly green dress thing, but her face is half white, and fake blood streaks across her lips and down her chin.

  She’s the boss of me and some other kids from our hood as we rush to the next house. I hate the cheap parents who warn us to “take only one candy,” like you’ll go broke if I take two, really, you old fart.

  People ask me where I’m going, just to hear me shout, “To infinity and beyond!” I play along if they give me an extra Snickers. Julie tells me not to be greedy as we head up the next driveway.

  But then she stops, rips off my mask, and begins stomping on it, smashing it to pieces.

  “What’re you doing?” I scream.

  “You can’t wear a mask. Not ever!”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it’s a lie! It’s not who we are!”

  “But it’s fun.”

  “No, Doc! It’s like being in prison! Forever! Just pray you never find out!”

  Clearly, she’s lost her mind.

  But wait. What is this? It’s more than a memory… it’s the present and the future—all happening at once.

  And then BOOM! I’m out of the vortex.

  Flora’s gravity hammers across my shoulders, threatening to crush me…

  A rumble like an earthquake explodes in my ears…

  And Meeka shouts, “Doc, lookout!”

  The sun’s in my eyes for a second before I’m knocked off balance and look up to get my bearings:

  We’re back at the Monkshood temple in Verbena, a town in the suburbs of the City of Violet. We’re in that office where we used Solomon’s engine for the trip back to Earth, only the place is buried in rubble and sand and a section of the ceiling has broken loose and plunges toward me.

  I dive forward, roll onto my side, and then sit up.

  Giant chunks of stone and jagged pieces of metal thunder across the floor.

  Barely a second later, my father materializes in front us.

  But he’s not alone.

  He’s wrestling with Grace, as though he were trying to stop her from jumping through the portal.

  She looks at me and shouts, “I said screw it and changed my mind!”

  With a loud groan, the floor around them collapses, and they drop like lost souls into the subway below.

  “Mom? Dad?” I scream.

  I lunge onto my hands and knees, but Tommy throws himself onto my back and pins me—

  Just as more debris crashes down in front of us.

  He’s shielding me from a storm of rocks and wires and more sharp building materials as the dust rises so fast and so thickly that I can’t see a thing.

  “Something went wrong,” Tommy shouts. “Rough jump!”

  The floor rumbles again, and it’s like the entire temple will collapse. Meeka and Steffanie scream to each other, and one of the nomads barks something about getting down.

  But then, a few seconds later, it’s quiet, just the tinkling of more dust and the creaking of debris in the wind.

  Slowly, I lift my head against the harsh gravity and spit dirt.

  “Everybody okay?” Tommy asks, rolling off of me.

  Coughing rises from behind us. Someone moans.

  “We’re good,” Landry says.

  “So are we,” answers Meeka. “But I can barely move.”

  “You’ll adjust,” Tommy promises her.

  My face feels gritty and covered in sand.

  “Mom? Dad?” I crawl forward.

  Tommy grabs the back of my vest. “The floor’s unstable.”

  “I don’t care. Dad? Can you hear me? Mom?”

  Tommy adds his voice to mine. “Grace? Thaddeus?”

  No answer.

  I struggle to my feet, but I feel like I’ve eaten a thousand Darth Vader waffles. Just standing leaves me breathless.

  Meeka, Steffanie, Blink, and the two nomads lie across an enormous pile of concrete and twisted girders that must’ve come down during the sandstorm, just after we left.

  Peaking out between the debris are the engine’s big gun barrels, the ones that face each other with the wreath in the center. The rest of the machine—our only way home—looks crushed.

  “What’s happening?” Blink asks nervously. “Doc’s mom came with us? Where are they? What was that crash? I need to jump right now! Please, what’s going on?”

  I cross to Blink and grab his hand. “Hey, bro, it’s Doc. My mother did something crazy. And don’t worry. You’ll be able to jump soon.”

  “I hope so. I’ve never felt like this before. Feels like I’m suffocating.”

  “You’ll be okay. Just chill here for a while.”

>   “Like I can do anything else?”

  Meeka mutters a half-hearted, “Thank you,” to me for talking to Blink, and then pushes off a girder. She staggers across the floor, toward the gaping hole where my parents vanished.

  Tommy, who’s been crawling forward, hollers for her to stop—

  But she shuffles right past him, drops to her hands and knees, and reaches the edge.

  Lying flat on her own belly now, she pulls herself forward and stares down into the subway. “I can see them!”

  Within a handful of heartbeats, I’m at her side and gaping down at my parents trapped under chunks of ceiling and rusting support beams that look way too heavy to move.

  My father lies on his side, eyes closed, and he’s bleeding badly from a gash across his temple.

  “Dad, can you hear me?” I scream.

  He doesn’t move.

  “Dad? Wake up!”

  Grace lies on her back, but she’s conscious and squinting against beams of sunlight filled with dust.

  “Mom, can you hear me?” I ask.

  “Doc?” she answers faintly.

  “We’re coming to get you.”

  “You’re father was right. I should’ve stayed home.”

  “Don’t say that.”

  “Okay. Can you get me out?”

  My heart’s racing. Panic mode. I glance at Tommy.

  He curses and says, “Didn’t pack any rope.”

  I sit up and face Meeka. “Remember how we got up here?”

  “Yeah, that staircase at the back of the warehouse.”

  “Let’s go.”

  “Whoa, son, you hold on,” Tommy orders.

  I’m too fired up to pay attention and just drag myself up. A dizzy spell hits. I stumble away from the hole and regain my balance. Meeka arrives behind me, and Steffanie joins us.

  Tommy crawls away from the hole and returns to his feet. “Now I say again, y’all hold your horses. We’re not rushing down there unarmed.”

  “Okay,” I answer. “But can you hurry?”

  He nods and then regards the nomads. “I need you boys on security and to keep an eye on him.” Tommy tips his head toward Blink, who lifts his chin at our approach.

  “You hiring us?” Boonwalla asks.

  “Sure am.” Tommy draws his rifle from one of the cases. “We’ll pay you with all the food you can carry.”

  “Done deal,” the nomad answers.

  “Hey, Tommy?” Landry asks. “Doc’s like your own boy.”

  “Like a nephew.”

  “Well, I got a son, and I plan on seeing him again.”

  “That ain’t up to me. It’s up to you.” Tommy tosses them a couple of loaded magazines for their pistols, and then he slaps a palm on my shoulder. “Good to go.”

  He moves ahead because the point man faces the greatest risk, and Tommy likes it that way.

  Problem is, we’re even more vulnerable now.

  Because we’re so slow, as in walking on Mt. Everest with snow up to our knees slow. We huff and puff like we can’t catch our breaths as we cross the office. And worse, the air’s not helping. It’s drier and slightly thinner than Earth’s.

  Once we reach the back, Tommy wrestles open a dented door to reveal the warehouse, the one that’s just like a Costco or Sam’s Club with wide aisles and towering shelves.

  Inside, there’s enough food for a hundred years.

  Or there used to be.

  Tommy curses. “Somebody had the munchies.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  “Now what?” Steffanie cries, shaking her had at the empty shelves. “We were counting on that stuff.”

  “Nomads must’ve come back for it,” I say.

  “We got food and snacks for about three days,” Tommy says. “After that, we’re on our own.”

  “We’ll figure that out later,” I say. “Come on. Hurry!”

  We trudge down a seemingly endless aisle and reach a stairwell door. Tommy pauses to hand Meeka his flashlight. She lights the way as we begin our descent.

  At the bottom, Tommy forces open the next door leading onto the subway platform, and we find the ladder to descend once more onto the train tracks.

  Once we’re all on the ground, we start toward the cone of light about fifty feet ahead—

  And reach my parents buried beneath the rubble.

  I wish I was calm. Act now, grieve later like Tommy does. Freaking out solves nothing and helps no one.

  But these are my parents. And I’m not some cold-hearted warrior.

  I kneel beside Grace and start shaking, hyperventilating, just having a massive and total meltdown.

  Meeka grabs me by the head. “Hey, hey, hey! Look at me! We’ll help them.”

  “Okay, okay. I’m sorry. I’m an idiot. It’s just…”

  “I know.” Her expression softens. “We’re here.”

  My voice falters. “Thanks.”

  “He’s unconscious, maybe a concussion, but his pulse feels strong,” Tommy says as he examines my father. “His pupils are a little dilated, though. Steffanie, get the First-Aid kit out of my pack. This cut he’s got needs stitches.”

  While she rushes to do that, Meeka and I clear some of the debris around Grace. The smaller chunks of stone and sheets of mangled metal are easy, but several mattress-sized pieces of rock have her pinned to the train tracks.

  We strain until we’re red in the face, but we can’t budge a single piece.

  And there’s more bad news: the girders lying across my father must be way heavier. Even jumping into our personas for better leverage wouldn’t help.

  “Tommy?” I glance to the pile.

  He sees me looking and answers, “I know.”

  “So what now?”

  “We need some heavy equipment or at least some ropes and pulleys and a whole lot of manpower—

  “Or some diggers who’re a lot stronger than us,” I finish, imagining Brave, Mama Grren, and the other hulking green cats jumping into their six personas and ripping up the tracks with their claws. Within seconds, they would burrow beneath the piles of concrete and steel to save my parents.

  “Yeah, that’s awesome, we’ll go find the grren,” Steffanie agrees. “They can help us dig out the engine, too.”

  Meeka’s unimpressed. “First, we have to convince them to help. What if they won’t? And then, even if our bikes are still here, the Highlands are at least four hours away—and that’s taking the shortcut through the city.”

  “Can we hitch a ride with Jingo or Martza or even Pace?” Steffanie asks.

  I assume those are people from other caravans since she’s already mentioned Pace.

  Meeka sighs. “We can’t jump, so we can’t find them… at least not fast.”

  “You left your cars up near the grren’s valley, right?” I ask.

  She nods.

  “Then we ride up on bikes, talk to the grren, and take the cars back. Even better, we let the grren jump ahead of us, find Tommy, and start digging them out. That means help would only be about four or five hours from now.”

  “That could work,” Meeka says. “If the grren will help.”

  “We have to try.” I glance at my parents. “Tommy, you think they’ll be okay till then?”

  He shrugs. “I ain’t no corpsman, but your dad’s breathing is pretty shallow. Some pressure on his chest. He could have some broken ribs or worse. He’s squeezed in there real tight.”

  Tommy rushes over to Grace, drops to his gut, and directs the flashlight’s beam between the jagged sections of stone. He squints, and his voice creases with exertion. “Yeah, she’s in there pretty good. How y’all doing, Grace?”

  “I have pins and needles in my legs,” she answers. “And I’m not sure I can feel my feet anymore.”

  “How about your breathing?”

  She takes a deep breath. “Oh, that hurts a little.”

  Tommy looks at me, deeply concerned. “You’d best get a move on.”

  I bend down and touch Grace’s ch
eek. “We’ll be back soon, okay? And then we’ll show you some amazing things.”

  “This is pretty amazing,” she says, struggling to smile. “I thought I’d have to die first before getting buried.”

  “Don’t joke like that.”

  Tommy regards Meeka. “You and Steff grab some pistols and rifles. You get a chance, you show Doc the basics.”

  “Roger that,” she answers.

  Tommy slaps a palm on my shoulder. “I’ll stay here and finish stitching up your dad. You go ahead and take those two knuckleheads with you.”

  “You mean the nomads?”

  Before Tommy can answer, sand streams down from the hole above us, and the ceiling yawns and creaks. A figure appears in the glare, his face cast in shadow.

  “Hey, Tommy? You lied to us,” Landry says. “There’s no food here. No food at all.”

  “There used to be,” Tommy fires back, shielding his eyes and staring up at the man.

  “Like we said, we’ll help, but we need payment.”

  “You boys take credit cards?”

  “What?”

  “Look, we’ll talk about that later. I got injured down here. I don’t got time to chit-chat with y’all.”

  “Sorry, deal’s off.”

  Tommy bares his teeth, aiming a finger at Landry. “Come on, son. You want to help your families? You help us.”

  “Hey, they’re gonna steal our stuff!” shouts Blink. “But don’t worry! I got them covered now!”

  He’s got them covered? The blind kid?

  A gunshot rings out—

  And we all jolt.

  “That’s your last warning,” cries Blink. “Now don’t move, or I’ll just spray bullets everywhere. I don’t care.”

  I curse under my breath.

  “Blink, hold your fire!” Tommy orders.

  “Don’t do it,” Landry shouts.

  But who’s he talking to?

  “I’m warning you,” says Blink.

  I wave Steffanie and Meeka toward the ladder. We bound off in our slow motion run against the oppressive gravity—

  Just as three shots echo from a rifle.

  Followed by another three round burst.

  And then another… from a pistol!

  Someone wails in agony.